Manufacturers of outdoor and indoor seating arrangements have continually endeavored to provide for the comfort of the user. In particular, it is desirable to provide a "soft" suspension system when a seating load is imposed on a seat, while yet maintaining the seat's structural integrity. The desirability for providing a comfortable seat suspension is particularly apparent in respect to one-piece seating shells for conventional shell chairs, molded from a semi-rigid plastic material. In addition to comfort, the designer and manufacturer must also consider the chair's aesthetic appearance, its slimness of profile, particularly for upholstered chairs, and its ventilation capabilities.
Heretofore, various attempts have been made to design a seating shell providing the above desiderata, as exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,202,581; 4,502731; and 4,660,887. These patents disclose upholstered and unupholstered seating shells wherein a plurality of slots are formed therein in attempts to more closely conform the seats thereof to the profile of a person sitting thereon. However, seating shells of this type exhibit flexing capabilities that do not provide a highly comfortable suspension system when a seating load imposed thereon. In particular, applicant has found that the ultimate "soft" suspension system for a seating load is one that will provide varied and closely controlled degrees of flex to compensate for the non-uniform seating load imposed thereon, i.e., to provide for a substantially uniform distribution of the seating load over a seat.